She remembered Lopes, who taught at the McCarthy School from 1965 to 2003, encouraging students to turn their mistakes into beautiful images and creating scenery for school plays and musicals and even decorating a float for a town parade.

“Tony loved to show friends the city. He found fascinating things and saw beauty others might have passed by,” said the Marlborough resident.

After a courageous battle with cancer, Lopes died at age 71 on Nov. 26, 2013. Before his death, he established a trust fund to commission artist David Phillips to create public art in Boston.

Four years after his death, Lopes’ wish for an artistic legacy will come to fruition this month with the unveiling of three artworks he commissioned for the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC).

Created by Phillips, an award-winning sculptor whose work Lopes admired for its “fine art combined with whimsy,” the three works include:

• “Tony’s Bench,” a 15-foot stainless steel and wood bench based on a violin’s sound holes in a park on the corner of St. Botolph and Gainsborough streets.

• Also in the park, “Scrolls,” a 17-foot tall perforated stainless steel sculpture lit from within and based on a violin’s form.

• “High Notes,” a 25-foot long mobile of curved stainless rods and painted aluminum featuring a maestro conducting moving musical symbols in the Schuler Gallery in NEC’s new Student Life and Performance Center.

They have been installed on the grounds of NEC’s new Student Life and Performance Center, a cutting edge 10-story building by Ann Beha Architects at 241 St. Botolph Street that combines educational, theatrical and residential space.

On Oct. 22, a private ceremony will be held for family and friends to honor Lopes and celebrate his life and legacy.

Phillips said Lopes contacted him “serendipitously” in 2011 after seeing his many sculptures throughout Boston, including the frogs at the Boston Common’s Tadpole Playground, and chose him to create “his legacy of public art to the city he loved.”

He said Lopes told him he was undergoing chemotherapy but rarely discussed the cancer that eventually killed him.

Designing the works for NEC after Lopes’ death, Phillips said he incorporated their mutual love of music to give the three sculptures a flowing, lyrical quality.

“Tony was always supportive and gave me creative freedom,’’ he said. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself. The way these works came about was a small miracle.”

For their first, earlier commission, Phillips created “Dancing With Spheres,” a 12-foot tall bronze sculpture of a dog and cat dancing that was installed in May 2013 at the Animal Rescue League of Boston (ARLB) in the South End six months before Lopes’ death.

Phillips declined to cite the value of the commission for either project.

Lopes’ younger sister, Linda Goudreau, of Taunton, recalled the installation at the ARLB as “the happiest day in Tony’s life.”

Growing up in Taunton, she said her brother’s first-grade teacher had recognized his artistic talent and suggested their parents get him private lessons.

“Tony was a wonderful brother who was always so talented,” said Goudreau, who has hung one of his painted seascapes in her living room. “Tony was a good man who’ll always be missed.”

Former colleagues, like retired second-grade teacher Patricia Slavin, still remember Lopes’ as a “great teacher and great friend” with an infectious passion for art and life.

Retired first-grade teacher, Meg Kelley, whose 37-year career largely coincided with Lopes, recalled her colleague as “an innovative and creative artist who was really devoted to his students and friends.”

She said Lopes always created original teaching material, often at his own expense. for his students and designed the school’s art wing that now bears his name with an enlarged work space, a kiln and big windows to let in light.

Even while battling cancer, Kelley said Lopes still enjoyed guiding friends and family into new exhibits, restaurants and plays in Boston.

“Tony truly wanted to accomplish things for his students and friends,” said the longtime Framingham resident. “I think Tony’s greatest legacy was to extend his life by sharing it with others.”